PCA- Post Colonial Applause

Post Colonial Applause (PCA) is something many of us have surely witnessed, but never quite put our finger on exactly what it is. I'll offer my recent experience at the Barbican centre in London as an example:

One of my favourite bands, the mighty Afrobeaters 'Antibalas', were doing a one-off concert at London's Barbican Arts Centre. It was a tender consolation for missing out on the WOMAD weekend in Wiltshire, and they were tremendous. It's very rare that people end up jumping up and down and roaming around to music in the Barbican Hall. Normally you're nailed to the chair, and any attempt to connect the musical mind and body together is promptly quashed by the mercenary Barbican ushers who roam the grounds, cattle-prods at the ready. But that night Antibalas released an afro-Boogaloo and everyone was very smiley and sweaty.

The support act, the Gangbe Big Band, were also top-notch; a jazzy,beefy afro-brass band from Benin. It was an intriguing blend of sounds, giving a sense of Benin's colonial past. Benin became a French colony in 1892 and was part of French West Africa until democratic independence in 1960. With the arrival of the french government came the influence of the European military marching band. Colonial officers imported Western instruments and taught the natives military marching band and dance hall tunes. You can definitely hear this in the Gangbe sound. Compared with the funky roll of an afrobeat groove from neighbouring Nigeria, the Beninese sound appears more four-square, more metrical, not so polyrhythmic and basically a bit more 'white'. The snap, crackle and pop of polished Western big band brass are tightly interlocked over West African percussion. Despite the colonial instrumentation in the brass (trombones, trumpets, even sousaphone!), much of the melodic material is authentically Beninese, taken from their own cultural canon of West African Vodun songs and spirituals. They had made it their own.

So it's very much the post-colonial concert experience. You're sat watching a muscley 6-foot-4 inch Beninese master-musician wielding a sousaphone in front of a sea of mild-mannered, appreciative and well-educated Guardian readers in the centre of the London metropolis on a warm summer's evening. This is of course a good thing. Historically, musically and culturally it's very rich. It has made me browse about the web at home trying to put together a vague understanding of traditional West African music, of Benin and a bit of French colonial history. But I can't deny the discomfort that you sometimes get from the multicultural concert experience. It has nothing to do with the musicians on stage. They were having a ball. It's more the audience-performer dynamic which seems to build up when you get African groups coming to prestigious Western venues. The irritation is at its worst when a performer talks to the audience. The trombonist from the Gangbe big band took it upon himself to introduce and interact a bit with the audience. He spoke more or less in broken english; a few nouns, a few verbs, just enough to get something across. But even before saying anything at all, somehow just by virtue of standing there in native dress there were a few 'oh yeahs' and mini-bursts of applause. Just what exactly is this concert hall phenomenon? Why am I reluctant to join in? Why am I holding back from enjoying it, and just accepting it as spectator enthusiasm and the joy of multiculturalism?

Somehow it's different. It's patronising. It's pre-emptive applause to cover awkwardness. Maybe it's the context of a rather debatable colonial history which, as a former colonial power, we now feel perhaps slightly uncomfortable with. It's the audience applause version of the nervously effusive laugh. A kind of collective defence mechanism which without thinking about you become a part of:

"Having enslaved and dominated your country under French colonial rule, committing what would be seen now as innumerable human rights atrocities, I'm now sitting watching a smiley trombonist in traditional Beninese clothing from a former slave colony trying his best to say a few words in English about the next Vodun tune. All things considered you've done really rather well. After all, the frenchies did try their darndest to knock that Vodun stuff out of you. Oh, you're approaching the microphone again. I think it's time for another round of well-earned post-colonial applause. Well done."

Maybe this is just rather cynical, but for me it's all in the sound of the applause. It just doesn't really mean it. It sounds feebly obligatory under the circumstances. And so I ask you to be vigilant in preventing others from patronising African artists from former European colonies with pre-emptive, guilt-ridden applause and indiscriminate 'yeahs' to fill any silence. It demolishes any real feeling of intimacy and ease between the audience and performer and is slightly embarrassing for all concerned.

Thank you.






* I would like express my gratitude to Thom Harmsworth for defining this cultural phenomenon and coining the term.